Last Friday, I posted “How you score with people” to remind high school students that the relentless measurement and reward of individual achievement so embedded in the college admissions process isn’t necessarily reflective of what it takes to be successful in the real world. What prompted that post in the first place—and the larger message that I couldn’t fit neatly into that single post—is the growing body of evidence that the people who seem to have  long-term success are those who find a way to help the people around them succeed, too.

Wharton Business School professor Adam Grant lays out a convincing argument in Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success. Here are two past posts on the book, here and here, and a New York Times story featuring Grant’s work, “Is Giving the Secret to Getting Ahead?”

I just finished a preview copy of Harvard psychology researcher Shawn Achor’s Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being. The book’s key message is that while competition and individual achievement leave you disconnected and short of your full potential, connecting with, relating to, and learning from other people leads to long-term success and happiness.

And naysayers who are reluctant to take their eyes off the individual prize might be interested in last weekend’s New York Times opinion piece about the “Shalene Flanagan Effect.” The first American woman to win the New York Marathon in over 40 years, Flanagan has also nurtured and encouraged the growing talent around her with remarkable results—every one of her 11 training partners has qualified for the Olympics.

The article finishes:

“She [Flanagan] is extraordinarily competitive, but not petty; team-oriented, but not deferential. Elevating other women is actually an act of self-interest: It’s not so lonely at the top if you bring others along…So, it was no coincidence that, with the support system she spent years building for herself, it was Flanagan who finally prevailed.”